February 2011

I have a problem when it comes to trying to raise the profile of Hide Your Arms. I don’t like spam, and I don’t want to spam you guys. I see brands talking about themselves 24/7 and it can get a little embarrassing, and I don’t want to be that, so when I launched the Facebook Likes Promotion last week I did it with some hesitation. I know this is the nature of the game, you have to tell people things repeatedly to perhaps get them to suggest Hide Your Arms to their friends on Facebook, but it’s not something I’m particularly comfortable with since I rarely do it myself, hell I don’t like to ask my own friends to like HYA on Facebook, so why should I expect people I don’t know to do it?

If you helped HYA gain some new fans I am very, very grateful, thank you for helping this site grow and reach more people, the bigger it gets, the more time I can afford to spend working on HYA and putting together those ridiculous lists that inevitably make the site crash. If you didn’t help by suggesting HYA to your friends, that’s cool too, like I said above, I understand, and I appreciate you taking the time to visit the site regularly.

So the promotion wasn’t hugely successful, though I was pretty proud that we broke the 2,000 likes barrier, it was sitting under that number which gave me the idea to even have this promo push, so at least we achieved that, and I was probably a bit deluded thinking that the amount of fans would jump up by hundreds simply because there aren’t that many fans, though if I keep coming up with articles like the Scott Pilgrim one earlier in the week then I’m sure that the fan base will grow.

Okay, enough teasing, I promised you a coupon code and that’s what I’m going to give you. Use the coupon code HYALOVESYOU to receive a 21% discount in the Hide Your Arms store on any of the items, hoodies, t-shirts (the stock is low though, remember), pin badges and stickers. This coupon code will be live until Sunday at midnight GMT… unless I forget to turn it off, in which it will be some random time after that.

I’m going to a medieval wedding this weekend (you read that right), and them I’m off on another work trip on Monday/Tuesday, so all orders placed using this coupon code in the Hide Your Arms store will be shipped out by 1st class Royal Mail on Wednesday. Next week I expect to finally have the 5th anniversary posters in the store, I did some test prints on a photocopier to test sizes, and even in terrible resolution and in grayscale print they looked good, so I can’t begin to imagine how mindblowingly nice the real thing will be!

I think I’ve only seen The Big Lebowski once, but I remember liking it, I’d say that my favourite scene, or at least the one that sticks in my mind the most is the on where someone is trying to barricade a door with a chair and it turns out the door opens the other way. I don’t know what it was about that scene, but it had me howling with laughter.

I got a bit of flak on the Scott Pilgrim post for not spending hours researching every reference I didn’t understand, so I’m a bit cautious about asking, but I don’t even know what to Google for this; those cat like eyes, are they from anime, or is it the Cheshire cat from Alice In Wonderland? I don’t watch much anime at all, but something is telling me that’s where that mouth and eyes come from. You assistance would be greatly appreciated!

This Tilteed tee is in their limited range, so in about a day and a half the design will be gone and you won’t be able to pick it up again for that sweet price of $12.

When I first saw this t-shirt, I wasn’t thinking about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (though admittedly this is a timely blog post given the latest updates in his possible extradition to Sweden today), I was thinking about the people all over the Middle East that are rising up and making their voices heard in countries where typically they are kept very quiet. I don’t know what it would be like to live in that condition, and the fear that many people are existing in right now, and it was be unfair for me to act as if I really understand it, but hey, at least this t-shirt made me think for a minute.

Threadbird (which is the printing wing of Storenvy) have released the latest version of their website (2.0 if you’re counting), and to go along with all the new features (more info for each product, new quote request form) and products they print on (business cards, postcards & more) they’re doing a similar promotion to the one they did last year. In 2010 they gave away a load of t-shirts which if I remember correctly were designed by Godmachine and had a seven colour print, it was a good way of showing off their printing abilities to potential clients (and clothing line owners that wanted a free tee). This time around the shirts aren’t free for everyone, but they aren’t far off. This years shirt (above) is designed by Mumford, and you can only get one if you are connected to the clothing industry in some way, though it would appear that they’re pretty easy about how connected you are, as this list shows:

To qualify for a free shirt you MUST be one of the following.
1. Run or work for a Clothing Company.
2. Be in a band or work with bands (label, manager, booking agent, etc)
3. Be a graphic designer that designs t-shirts
4. Run some type of website that has to do with t-shirts, music, or the arts.
5. Work for some type of company that would need tshirts printed at some point.

People that like The Simpsons and Bauhaus? There’s probably more overlap on that Venn diagram than I’d assume. When I went to Berlin a couple of years ago for T-Shirt Day my hotel was next to the Bauhaus museum, I didn’t venture inside, but the building looked pretty damn cool.

Anyway, this tee is damn cool, and it’s screenprinted by hand in Philadelphia by a guy called Patt Whelan, so it’s got to be good.

This is a strange sale, they put 30% off on the infographic that came with their newsletter, but not everything in the store is on sale. However, loads of tees have got 50% off, so it’s not all doom and gloom.

I know I’m a bit late on this week’s limited Seibei design, but it’s actually less of an issue than usual, because this week Seibei has a very dramatic twist to go with this classic design. To add a personal touch, me and David once ate hangover burritos together, I know that’s not the same as a taco, but it brought back a memory. Dammit, I need to go drinking and eat food with more t-shirt people, you people are interesting.

Both colorways of this shirt will be available until February 25th at the special preorder price of $18, after which all orders will print and ship. HERE’S THE CATCH – THE MOST POPULAR COLOR WILL BECOME PART OF THE CATALOG, BUT THE LEAST POPULAR COLOR WILL BE GONE FOR GOOD, BECOMING A SUPER LIMITED EDITION!

Matt over at Seventh.Ink (a HYA advertiser) dropped me an e-mail about their new Spring line. They aren’t properly on sale yet, but if you want to put a pre-order in to make sure you can claim your shirt then that is possible (and you’ll make a saving too!), you’ll just have wait a little bit longer than usual to receive your tee.

It’s based on the Twitter “Fail Whale” and vintage nautically-themed beer label designs, and I’ve illustrated it using the same classic scratchboard technique that I employed for my popular “Polar Beer” design. It will be for sale at TeeFury on Wednesday, Feb 23rd for just $10, and is also available through my own shop hand-screened on American Apparel for $18.

I’ve also reworked the graphic and had it printed on both pint glasses and can koozies, both of which are also available in my shop.

Once again to coincide with the TeeFury print, I’ll be running a coupon code (FailWhale15) good for 15% off of your total order from my shop and will also be giving away goodies through both Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr (with more details available on my blog – where you can also find photos and descriptions of the process behind this design).

*Update* Wow, lots and lots of interest in this post, thank you for visiting everyone, I apologise for my server not being able to handle the avalanche of traffic every so often. People have been adding loads of cool info in the comments to plug the gaps I left wide open (I’m not SP expert, just an enthusiastic amateur), including locations where you can pick up the shirts.

Ever since I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. the World last year I knew I should make a post listing all the t-shirts worn by Scott (and everyone else) in the film, but I never got around to it until now. I wish I could tell you I painstakingly went through the film making screencaps, but that would be a lie, I just went through all 4000 images on this site and picked out the ones which displayed the tees.

As I suspected whilst watching the film, you can’t actually buy all of them, at least in their on-screen incarnation, because they were created for the film to fit in with Scott’s apparent love of ringer tees. I’ve found sites where people are creating their own fan clothing, but I’m sticking to finding places where you can buy the shirts yourself, nice and easy, no need to learn how to screenprint or have and messy copyright issues.

This is the first shirt we see Scott (played by Michael Cera, of course) wearing. You might think the SP on the front is a reference to his own name, but thanks to a few Twitter suggestions it became pretty damn obvious that this is actually a t-shirt first released by the Smashing Pumpkins. You can buy it from Corpse Clothing for £16.49.

The next tee we see in the film is being worn by Young Neil. It’s a pretty cool design (especially the little heart on the right sleeve that can be seen later in the film) but I can’t find it anywhere, there’s a knock off on Cafepress but frankly it’s pretty poor.

Here’s Scott talking to his sister. He’s wearing the aforementioned Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt, and she’s at work at Second Cup, wearing their 3/4 sleeve raglan tee uniform. I’m not really surprised that there’s no official place to buy this shirt since Second Cup doesn’t feature much in the film. No one has put their own on design on the usual custom tee sites, and the only good thing I found on eBay was this AMAZING album cover that has nothing to do with Scott Pilgrim.

I thought that this would be the easiest t-shirt to find online but amazingly it would appear that it’s nowhere to be found, except for this regular (non-ringer) logo tee on eBay that’s in the wrong colour. The silly thing is that it’s actually a pretty cool shirt since Sharpie have a nice logo. If you know of it on sale anywhere let me know. EDIT: Someone found it!

I know you can only just see the top of Scott’s tee here, but as this is a tee I can identify and send you to the official, licensed supplier, it would be remiss of me not to include it. The Scott Pilgrim bird shirt can by bought from Mighty Fine for $25 (mens/womens).

I like the air quotes shirt, especially in this colourway, it really seems like something that a guy in an indie/rock band would wear, good job costume department! Mighty Fine have their own version of it, but to be honest I think that the print is a bit oversized and the colours are a little off. It’s not bad by any means, it’s just not perfect.

Hey look, it’s Ramona, she’s not wearing a tee (that we can see, at least), but she is pretty (not as pretty as my girlfriend, of course), so I thought I’d include this screencap anyway.

I have no idea what this shirt looks like, I’m just including the screencap for archival purposes so that I could be thorough, if you manage to find the shirt on sale then you are truly a God of tee hunting.

Another cool shirt being worn by Young Neil, but of course it couldn’t possibly just be as simple as me Googling “New Order T-shirts”… except it was, kind of. That Googling will get you the official New Order t-shirtfrom avariety ofsources, but Young Neil is too cool for that, he has to have a New Order tee with a spelling mistake on it. You’ll notice that his shirt has the word ‘FACD’ written on it, whereas the real deal has ‘FACT’, which presumably means that this shirt was created for the film, and that there’s an in-joke that I’m missing, anyone want to fill me in?

This list of t-shirts contains many disappointments, but the Match Pik USA t-shirt is not one of them, because you can buy it directly from Jim Dunlop (a name any/all guitarists will be familiar with) for $20. Nice.

How can I not find this shirt? How? It’s the logo from the N64, and I can’t find it, retro gaming people should be all over this, there’s a niche, someone make the shirt to fill it!

Just another shot of the Match Pik USA t-shirt mentioned above, but I liked the screencap.

I actually only included this screencap because Knives is cute (not as cute as my girlfriend, of course), has a cool name, and her ‘homemade’ Sex Bob Omb t-shirt is a t-shirt and should therefore be included in this list. However, it transpires that Mighty Fine have a replica of Knives’ shirt on sale for $25, it is printed rather than made of random bits of cloth stuck to a black t-shirt, which makes it a bit less faithful to the original than I assume fans would like, but it does make it a bit more practical.

I think that this is arguably the most famous of all the Scott Pilgirm shirts out there, probably because it was quite a popular shirt before the film was released. Originally, Diesel Sweeties didn’t actually sell the ringer version of this shirt, the SP team asked for permission to create it because the shirt was in the comic books as a ringer tee. Only after the film was released (or possibly slightly before because of the hype it was getting) did Diesel Sweeties do a run of ringer pixel skull t-shirts.

I think it’s pretty obvious I just wanted to post another picture of Ramona (who, let me remind you, is nowhere near as cute as my girlfriend), at least we can see here wearing a t-shirt this time!

Ooooooh, so this is a Canadian film, eh? I am yet to find a t-shirt that is actually faithful to this design. There are a few out there that have SARS written on them in a generically college font, but none of them have the purple rings for the ringer. The devil is in the detail pop culture tee companies! If you’ve seen a shop selling the shirt (properly), let me know.

I still don’t know where you’d buy a Second Cup t-shirt or 3/4 sleeve, but I’m pretty sure it’s a universal rule of blogging to mention Aubrey Plaza if at all possible.

The shirt being worn by Ramona says “24 Unstoppable” and I was SURE that it was a reference to a song, but I can’t find the reference anywhere, and likewise I can’t find the t-shirt anywhere. This one has the feel of being commercially produced, rather than a one off for the film, there’s something about it that suggests that to me, I’m not really sure why. Again, if you have any idea, let me know.

Astroboy, his face is on everything, right? If it can be merchandised his face and pointy hair will not be far behind. Not in this case, I can’t find any tee like this, not even one that isn’t a ringer. This shirt was actually featured in the comic, and in a similar ‘scene’ (as that what they’re called in comics?), which is really impressive, one of those things that should keep the comic fans happy.

Ahhh, Brandon Routh, now there’s an attractive man, even with that ridiculous blonde hair. If you would like to buy one of the originals of this shirt (as in, it was on set, though probably not worn by Brandon, check out this eBay seller that has a number of wardrobe items from the Scott Pilgrim movie. However, if you don’t want to drop big dollars on the most authentic item possible, 80sTees have a similar item available. By their own admission they admit it isn’t exactly the same, as it has an adidas logo embroidered on it on the lower left side (I assume that the one in the film wasn’t a legit adidas product, whereas 80sTees version has to be because it has those 3 famous stripes on the shoulders.

I actually forgot to grab the cap of this tee from the normal source, but did find it elsewhere during my research. I believe that the design is based on a Punisher skull, I’m not a comic guy so I’m just trusting my Googling there (and it looks pretty obvious to me in retrospect). I can’t find any Todd Ingram skull shirts that are exactly the same, there are a few (at RedBubble, at Bonanza, and at eCrater), but none of them are a ringer shirts, just a regular black t-shirt, which I don’t think will really be good enough for dedicated Todd Ingram wannabes.

I really like this ‘zero star’ t-shirt. Once again it displays Scott’s love of the Smashing Pumpkins (or perhaps just a love of the letters S & P), as it is more of their merchandise. Once again, this is clearly a shirt that was produced for the film, because the two places that I’ve been able to find the shirt on sale it doesn’t have the ringer neck and sleeves. That sucks, because I think that this design suits the ringer quite well, but if you’re happy with having regular sleeves, you can pick the design up at 80sTees and on Amazon.

I’m completely lost on this ‘4 1/2′ design. I can’t work out the reference, and I can’t see it on sale anywhere, it feels like a bit of a dead end, which is frustrating because it’s pretty cool. The design is a reference to Franklin Richards from Fantastic Four, which is helpful, but brings us no closer to finding the tee, probably because no one sells it.

The design on this shirt should be pretty obvious to fans of the Rock Band series of games, as it represents the bass icon in the game. With this shirt having such a broad range of appeal it’s hardly surprising that people have taken it upon themselves to create similar tees. This one at RedBubble looks pretty good, but with it being printed at RedBubble it’s not possible to get it on a ringer tee. There is one on eBay that looks good, but the sellers feedback isn’t perfect, and the design might be a bit oversized.

I forget this guys name, he may just be Wallace’s friend or Wallace’s boyfriend, but I can’t forget the name of the tee, Funkalicious, because it’s been one of Threadless‘ most popular and enduring designs. Of course, Threadless don’t sell the tee in this colourway or on a ringer tee (the original is a navy t-shirt), but the Scott Pilgrim team made a requested to Threadless to let them print it, and being a cool company they said yes. Fun fact, this tee was also featured in a panel in the original comic.

This cool looking bat/question mark t-shirt was worn by the bouncers at the Chaos Theater. The lower picture shows the shirt that someone got from the actual wardrobe department (I’m not sure how they got it though). Really good design by itself, and the Scott Pilgrim-ness of it obviously adds something, but I can’t find a replica anywhere, and I can’t really imagine anyone doing their own print run of a similar design now this long after the film has been released.

I forget what this guy did, was he another bouncer or just some random dude slowing up our hero? Still, cool tee.

In the final battle Scott reverts back to his trusty old green Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt that I wrote about earlier.

I somehow missed this shirt whilst I was looking at the caps of the film. I can’t remember seeing it, but as I have a picture, I’m pretty confident it was in the movie. The design is the logo of the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company?), and whilst you can’t get the shirt in that grey on black colourway (which is always a complementary colour combo), you can pick up an official version in a far less cool “70’s retro” blue/yellow/red colourway.

Thanks a lot for checking out this overview of Scott Pilgrim shirts. I’m as disappointed as anyone that there are so many gaps in what’s available and what isn’t, so if you know of a place to get a shirt or are selling one that was used in the film please leave a comment and I’ll update the post with all the info we can get. If you’ve enjoyed this post please share it in any way you can, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, your own blog, delicious (now that it isn’t closing down), StumbleUpon, anything you can do will really be appreciated. Game over!

AMB3R designs and prints awesome custom shirts, and if you include the coupon code “hideyourarms” on your project of 50 shirts or more, we will give you $50 off!

Ready to get started? Then go to www.amb3r.com and click “start a t-shirt,” and we will get in touch with you to chat about your t-shirt needs!

[Andy: These guys aren’t a ‘custom tee’ company as I would usually think of them (Spreadshirt, Zazzle, Cafepress), they seem to be more of a normal printing company that also offer design services, they’ve got some impressive clients on their roster (including Johnny Cupcakes), so whilst their website seems a little idiosyncratic (it took me a while to work out what they actually do), chances are they’re pretty good at what they do. Has anyone heard of Amb3r before?]

The above cartoon doesn’t tell us anything new, though I would take exception to the use of “baked fresh since 1982″ at the end of the vid. Clearly Johnny hasn’t been seling tees for that long, so it’s a bit disingenuous, I would presume (perhaps wrongly) that he was born in 1982, but that isn’t quite the same as establishing a t-shirt company.

I don’t really understand the fascination that people have with unicorns, but apparently people love them, so much so that Tilteed have done a very rare thing and turned one of their tee designs into a hoodie. You’ve got a couple of days to pick the hoodie up for $32.

I say going ‘old school’ because A Year of Tees is making a comeback, but isn’t following the same format as last year (adding a new t-shirt design every day). In reality, the comeback is more of a reissue, all of last year’s designs are being made available again after popular demand.

I’m not sure if this means that the store is going to be kept open indefinitely, but it’s certainly welcome to have all those designs available again, and I’m glad that Keith’s project is gaining more interest even though he’s ‘finished’ with it.

Quick update about the hoodies, I’m now sold out of medium sized pullovers, and have limited quantities available in all other sizes. That isn’t me trying to over-hype them, it’s just that I only did a limited run, so quantities were fairly limited to begin with.

I know the posters are running later than you’d have wanted, especially as people seem quite excited about them, but I will hopefully be getting the first shipment in within a week.

I’ve featured photos by extraverage in the past, the long ago past I think, but never of something like this. According to the Dieline, these are t-shirt tins, as in packaging for when you buy a t-shirt. I think they’re very cool, and I imagine that if I received one I’d put it on my desk to store pens and stuff, but as someone who now sells stuff in the HYA store, I can’t help but wonder how much shipping in a can like this would add to the cost of sending a tee around the world (especially considering how much my shipping prices put you Americans off already, even though I’m losing money on the hoodie shipping).